Pure Consistency, Calm Certainty
by karebear
Summary: "You weren't there, Katniss!" "I know," she whispers. She is enormously conscious of the empty space between them.


Notes: I promised the fabulous **Ellenka** that I'd write her something with Katniss and Gale in it for her birthday, which was like a week ago now because she had the misfortune of celebrating her anniversary of a trip round the sun during an exceptionally busy week/month/year, for me. Consider this the airline losing your suitcase or something, and Happy Belated!

I made Ellenka this promise despite the fact that it has been almost a year since I've spent any time whatsoever with Katniss and Gale, or in Panem, and my writing output this year in general is slow and sporadic. I go in with no expectations, and I let the characters talk to me. Kat and Gale said **that this is what they were doing in the bomb shelters under District 13 in Mockingjay.** I asked them if they were in a relationship, like the kind that would make Ellenka happy, and they said they didn't know either. If they were in a relationship or if it would make anybody happy, or even if it makes them happy, really. "Like sleeping together?" asks Gale. "Yeah. But it's just sleeping." Oh well.

The title "Pure Consistency, Calm Certainty" comes from an article I read on classroom management.

* * *

Katniss can't sleep. This is nothing new. It seems most of her life has been spent chasing off nightmares, waking too early, running from shadows and memories and real, new threats. For a moment, she listens to Gale's unsteady breathing beside her. He _is _asleep, though it is not peaceful rest. He stirs uncomfortably beside her, and he doesn't seem to notice when she curls up closer to him. They are crammed close together in the tiny bunks slotted into the walls of District 13's bomb shelter, and those beds were never designed for more than one person. Neither of them would consider sleeping alone, though.

Katniss gnaws on her lower lip and fights her desire to comfort him, or seek his comfort beyond his physical presence close to hers, a half-assed compromise that will never be good enough. The awkwardness between them when they're awake only barely fades at night. When she reaches out to touch him, it feels like she's stealing something, taking without his consent.

She takes a breath, as though readying herself for a plunge into uncertain water, before trailing her fingers lightly over his skin. They move with ghost touches along the curve of his neck, over his shoulder. He moans softly, pulling away from even that minimal contact, and though she doesn't want to admit it, it does hurt. Even if it's just a reflexive movement in his sleep, the thought that he doesn't want her sinks from her brain to her stomach and blossoms outward, a patch of biting emptiness that quickly fills with jealously and hurt and fear.

She rolls over and tucks her hands behind her head as she stares at the darkness above her, which will eventually give way to rough stone, the heavy crushing layers that will suffocate them, whether or not the Capitol's nuclear explosives kill them, fast or slow. Panic flutters in her stomach.

Gale is afraid too. She can tell by his movements and exhalations that he is dreaming; she can tell by the tension in his muscles that they are not good dreams.

Her memory flickers to the twilight hours when Prim had crawled into her bed, unable to fall asleep, unwilling to seek help from their mother, mentally absent even as her physical presence cast a shadow that Katniss was both grateful for and bitter about. Her younger sister was easy to comfort. Her dreams were frightening, which Katniss certainly understands because she'd struggled through plenty of her own, but Prim fell asleep again easily: all Katniss had to do was rub her back in gentle circles through the thin fabric of her shirt and hum a few lullabies. When morning dawned, her sister was as cheerful and relentlessly positive as the sunshine.

The bomb shelter miles below even already-underground District 13 is, obviously, utterly devoid of sunshine. It feels like a tomb, like they are already dead. She can't sit still. There is too much pressure even in lying still, in trying too hard to not-sleep, in carefully keeping her body from touching Gale's. She is enormously conscious of the empty space between them.

Her fingers curl into a fist, held close to her heart, as though she could fight off all of the reasons for the existance of that space. Gale kicks and thrashes a bit, fighting the nightmarish reality that won't let him escape for even a few hours: if he cannot fight the war out on the ground because he is locked down in a bunker, than the war will come to him. Katniss sits up, and watches him, for a few moments that stretch into eternity.

And then she figures that if they are going to die – if they are already dead, buried here under miles of rock – then there is no good reason to worry about the future, what might happen, and all the things she should not do. She places her palm flat against Gale's back. Her hand rises and falls in time to his breathing. Her fingers trace rough lines of white scar tissue. And she begins to move her hand in slow, gentle circles. Before she even realizes it, a few familiar notes have escaped from her lips, halfway between hum and whistle.

Gale jolts awake. His eyes fly open. He pulls away from her, jerking away from her touch. There is no illusion now that he does not know exactly what he's doing; she can't pretend that his lack of confidence in her is anything other than just that. He is not confused or half asleep – he does not want her touching him, he does not want her near him. It's as simple as that.

His eyes focus on her with that same familiar intense gaze she remembers from countless trips out into the woods. "What the hell are you doing, Katniss?" he snaps.

"You were having a bad dream," she observes, needlessly. "I dunno, I thought I could... help."

The words sound lame. Of _course _she couldn't help. They both know it.

"You can't," Gale insists. He pulls a shirt over his head and stalks out of the tiny box where his family is waiting to die.

He disappears quickly into the darkness out beyond the range of the red-tinted emergency lights. Katniss follows a few moments later, although she knows she shouldn't follow him, she is pulled forward by his certain expectation that she will. Their shared physical presence is comfortingly familiar: it overpowers words and the pushing-away of the war they fight with and against each other.

She's made it barely a few steps before the world begins to shake around her, reminding her again, as though she has forgotten, where they are, and why. Her heart hammers against the inside of her ribcage, seeking an escape. She's sure she can feel it beating somewhere up toward her throat. Alarm klaxons screech and wail, as if anyone doesn't know exactly what this is. But Gale is just sitting there, perched atop a supply crate, still and calm.

Katniss tilts her head back to look up at him. "I could help if you let me," she demands, stupidly. Gale glares at her, and the wordless condemnation makes her squirm. He used to trust her.

"You weren't there, Katniss!" he snaps.

The guilt hits her then, redoubled in a sudden crashing wave that brings a screaming emptiness radiating out from a tight knot in her stomach. Because he's _right_. She wasn't.

She's never been there when he needed her, _if _he needs her at all, but why would he? She'd like to think he never has, that he'd been taking care of his family for years before she ever met him. She'd crawled out into the woods because when her father died in the mines alongside his, she was suddenly reduced to the same lonely desperation he'd always known. He'd never really needed her, but she needs him. "I know," she whispers.

They've never been good with words anyway, and she can't figure out what she wants to say, if she wants to apologize or give an excuse like _I was fighting for my life in a fucking Capitol arena!, _or beg him to help make things better because even though she _wan't _there, or probably because of it, the guilt of this war is far too much to take.

Flashes of fire light behind her eyes as the earth shakes above her, and the whining echoes of the incoming missile hits buzz inside her head. She presses her palms to her forehead and squeezes her eyes shut and tries to force herself to breathe. She isn't aware of Gale's strong arm draped across her shoulderblades until she hears his rough voice in her ear. "We're going to get back at those bastards, Kat."

She looks up, into his hardened eyes. She's seen him angry before, watched as he raged and ranted in the woods, venting all of the frustrations that he could not safely speak of inside their razor-wire cage. But this is different. He is so _calm_. He sounds certain, and she clings to that because she does not feel certain, ever.

He shifts a bit, withdrawing his touch, but she burrows into the crook of his shoulder, and he doesn't push her away. Her head rests against his chest, so that she can feel the rise and fall of his breaths as he picks up the pad of paper he'd set down.

She adjusts her position so that she can see what he's doing. She watches him draw for a few long seconds, the glances back up to his face. Gale nibbles on his lower lip and his brow furrows in concentration as he traces pencil lines, perfectly straight and thin. She understands very little about the diagrams carefully imprinted onto tissue-thin sheets. The red-tinted glow of the ever-present emergency lights, far away, makes it even more difficult to make sense of the shapes and lines. She isn't sure how Gale manages to see well enough to draw. He doesn't look at the paper though, not really. Whatever motions his hand is making are habitual, by now.

When a brighter flash of white light from someone's personal torch sweep across them, Katniss is able to process more than Gale's movement's and the paths they trace. The light illuminates arrows and equations, bright colors scribbled in tight script that covers every available bit of the paper. She recognizes the shapes and curves of one of those designs. Her fingers clench tightly, as though wrapped around the bow Beetee had created especially for her. She reaches out to run her fingertips over that familiar arc, but Gale gently shoves her hand away, so she is left with nothing to do but frown up at him, confused and awed and seeing him in a brand new light. She'd always figured he was smart. But this is something she's never seen before, never considered.

"You're good," she says softly. His careful illustrations remind her of her father's journals. Her eyes follow his fingers as they trace across the paper, and she remembers the way he'd untangle knotted snare lines with the same patient, deliberate movements. "I never knew you could draw."

To her surprise, a shadow of a smile appears on his face. "You never asked," he says smoothly.

"These are more weapons. Aren't they?" Gale doesn't answer, but he doesn't have to. "Do they make you feel better?"

She doesn't think he's going to say anything. He might be ignoring her. But he finally does respond. "A little," he admits, with a low murmur. "It feels good to fight."

Katniss nods, although she isn't sure she agrees, not anymore. She mostly just feels sick, these days. Afraid. Alone.

She pulls herself out of Gale's reach and stares into the midnight dark of the shelter, still and sleeping once again.

Gale sets the pad down once more. He doesn't reach out for her. He just watches, with that serious gaze she can't break away from. She needs his forgiveness. For everything that's happened to him that she wasn't there for. He combs his fingers through the tangles of her dark hair, gone unwashed for days down here where there are no cameras to watch her. And he kisses her, gently. His lips brush across hers.

She squirms and pulls away, uncertain what to do now that he's suddenly breaking the rules they've set. She can barely breathe. "Gale?" she whispers.

He blinks, and hugs her close, and she could break out of his hold but she doesn't want to. She relaxes against his chest again, and closes her eyes, and he rests his chin atop hers and keeps her safe.


End file.
